Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of messaging systems including persistent chats and instant messaging, and more particularly to the validation of an contact name in an instant messaging system.
Description of the Related Art
Real time communications systems provide a substantial enhancement over more traditional, asynchronous communications systems. Electronic mail delivery systems, the prototypical asynchronous communications systems, in its time represented a giant leap forward in respect to global interpersonal communications. Prior to electronic mail, individuals primarily communicated via telephone, facsimile and post. With electronic mail, however, individuals expect near instant delivery of text, and even imagery, audio and video, without incurring the delay typical of the postal system, or the expense associated with telephony and fax technologies.
Despite the ubiquity of electronic mail, asynchronous communications systems lack several elements common in the realm of real time communications systems. In particular, the seemingly instant delivery of a message cannot be experienced in the world of electronic mail. In a real-time society, the minor latencies associated with electronic mail often cannot be suitable for the task at hand where a real-time conversation will be required in addressing a problem or performing a collaborative task. More importantly, often the feel and nature of a “conversation” as it is known to human beings only can be approximated through real time communications where the participants to a conversation feel the spontaneity of an exchange of ideas, much as is the case in a live, face-to-face conversation.
In a conventional instant messaging session, which can include not only computer-to-computer instant messaging conversations, but also persistent chats and the like, one participant to a chat can select another participant to engage in the chat. The selection of a participant to engage in the chat involves the selection of a known participant from a pre-configured list of participants from previous chats, or the manual specification of the participant. For a manual specification of a participant, one generally must identify the network address of the participant—typically the e-mail address of the participant.
The manual specification of a participant for inclusion in a chat involves no validation—especially for a user residing outside of a community of chat participants. That is to say, the messaging system never determines whether the network address or other specified identity of an external participant is a valid network address. Mostly, messaging systems do not cooperate in validating the network address of a potential participant to a chat so as to avoid exposing the identities of valid users to would be malicious intruders and malfeasors. Consequently, to the user manually specifying a participant for a chat, the participant will always appear to be unavailable to engage in the chat. Additionally, any presence awareness associated with a validly specified participant will not apply in the case of an improperly specified participant.